Anunoby’s last-second – A once-unthinkable Knicks surge finished with a 107-106 Game 4 win as OG Anunoby delivered two defining plays in the final 11 seconds. New York took a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals, setting up a critical Saturday return in San Antonio where the Spurs face elimina
The roar in Madison Square Garden sounded different the moment the Knicks decided to change the game’s shape. San Antonio had arrived for Game 4 with a stranglehold built on shooting. forcing the Spurs to an NBA Finals-record 14 made threes in a half and a staggering 27-point road lead through the first two quarters. The Spurs even made it to halftime with an efficiency that felt untouchable: 59.6% shooting in the first half. including 53.8% from three—while forcing just two turnovers and chilling the atmosphere.
Then, 48 minutes later, the series had a new story entirely.
New York cut through the momentum by tightening its defense in the second half. and the change was visible in the numbers. The Spurs’ offense started rushing possessions, settling for hasty threes, and losing the ball more often. San Antonio’s advantage that had reached 29 with 9:40 left in the third quarter shrank to 15 to start the fourth. When the Spurs pushed the lead back to 20 with 9:33 left after Victor Wembanyama tipped in his own missed lay-up. it still looked like the night might belong to San Antonio.
Instead, everything fell apart—especially the shot-making that had defined the first half.
Over the second half, the Spurs made just eight field goals on 39 attempts, going 4-of-19 in the fourth quarter. After setting an NBA record for three-point shooting in the first half, they went 3-of-17 from deep in the second. Turnovers told another part of the story: San Antonio made only two turnovers in the first half. then committed five in each of the third and fourth quarters.
Even Wembanyama’s personal output carried a crack. The Spurs’ superstar. an 86% free-throw shooter through these playoffs. missed three free throws in the fourth quarter—two of them with 1:47 left while New York clung to a one-point lead. Still, he finished with 23 points, 13 rebounds and three blocked shots, but he was just 9-of-25 from the floor.
The Knicks, and Knicks fans, will remember Game 4 as one of the franchise’s most dramatic nights in a history that dates back to 1946. It ended 107-106, handing New York a 3-1 lead as the series shifts back to San Antonio for Game 5 on Saturday. The Spurs will need to win to avoid elimination.
The heroics came in the last seconds. when OG Anunoby turned a nearly impossible ending into the kind of play that gets replayed until everyone knows it by memory. With the Knicks down by one and only 4.3 seconds left, it looked like the historic comeback would slip away. Anunoby ran into the lane after a Jalen Brunson three-point attempt. He timed his leap perfectly and tipped the long rebound gently back into the rim with his right hand—at least one foot above it. The Garden erupted.
But that wasn’t even the first strike.
Earlier in the final 11 seconds, Anunoby tracked down Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox in transition. Fox appeared ready to turn a long rebound into an easy lay-up that would have put San Antonio up by three with 11 seconds to play. It didn’t happen. Anunoby—again in the kind of transition moments that have marked this series—turned Fox away and preserved the Knicks’ chance.
After the tip-in, the Knicks closed the door on the Spurs’ last attempt. New York defended the final Spurs chance off an inbounds pass with 1.2 seconds left.
The block and the tip-in together formed a complete game from a player often asked to do the thankless work for a superstar team. Anunoby took just 15 shots, scored 33 points, and went 7-of-9 from three. He guarded at high intensity across positions: Wembanyama at seven-foot-four as he fought him at the rim. and Fox on the perimeter down the stretch in the fourth quarter.
The swing of Game 4 also echoed what the series had been whispering through its smaller details—how close it’s been, how quickly momentum can reverse, and how thin the line between control and collapse can feel.
Before Game 4 flipped, there were patterns that seemed tied to each team’s success. The ratio of Wembanyama’s shots in the restricted area to shots from the three-point line stood out. In the Spurs’ two losses, it was 4:3. In Game 3, the ratio was more than 2:1. In Game 4, Wembanyama took eight threes and made just two, while taking 11 shots at the rim.
Turnovers were another thread. It had been a low-turnover Finals. especially given how physical the defenses have been. but in the first three games the team that won the turnover margin came out ahead. In Game 4 specifically. turnovers were arguably the turning point: when the Spurs jumped out to a 27-point first-half lead. they held a 7-2 advantage in turnovers. When New York beat San Antonio by 28 points in the second half, the turnover advantage belonged to the Knicks, 10-7.
Even the offensive glass shifted. The Knicks entered Game 4 with a 36-20 edge in offensive rebounds and won that battle in all three of the first games. building a second-chance advantage. Game 4 reversed it: the Spurs had a 12-8 advantage in offensive rebounds. Still, New York produced the most important offensive rebound of the series, with Anunoby’s soaring, game-winning tip-in.
Brunson’s numbers kept telling a story of a star trapped between pressure and necessity. In the first three rounds of the playoffs before facing the Spurs. Jalen Brunson averaged 26.9 points over 14 games with 6.6 assists and 2.3 turnovers. His effective field goal percentage was 54.1, close to his season average numbers of 26/6.8/2.4 with an eFG of 53.3. His usage rate stayed steady at 30.4% in the regular season and 30.7% across the first three playoff rounds.
Against the Spurs, though, the efficiency dropped. Brunson’s effective field goal percentage entering Game 4 was 41.4. The piece of it that stings is how the workload changed: his usage rate jumped from 30.7 over the first 14 playoff games to 39.6 in three games against the Spurs. The explanation wasn’t about effort—it was structure. The Spurs didn’t have to trap him. and could pressure without automatically sending a second defender. forcing Brunson into more work and. often. worse shots.
Still, Game 4 belonged to him. Brunson finished with 36 points on 12-of-25 shooting—the game-high mark. He scored 19 in the first half when the Knicks looked like they might be counting empty calories. In the fourth quarter. he kept delivering when it mattered. exploiting a smaller Knicks lineup. spreading the floor. and drawing Wembanyama away from the rim. With 1:22 left. Brunson’s driving floater gave New York its first lead and sparked the Garden into a different kind of electricity.
There was also a physical turning point earlier. Wembanyama picked up a flagrant foul in the third quarter for an inadvertent elbow to the jaw of Karl-Anthony Towns. Wembanyama apologized instantly after making contact as he tried to break free of Towns’ grip. The NBA doesn’t allow much leeway for head contact that isn’t part of a play on the ball. and the foul carried weight.
A flagrant 1 is worth one point, and a flagrant 2—where the foul is deemed intentional and dangerous—results in an instant ejection and is worth two points. A player who accumulates four total flagrant foul points over the course of the post-season is suspended for the next game.
The stakes of that rule are part of why fans still remember Draymond Green’s 2016 suspension for Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Green wasn’t suspended for the iconic kick itself in the way people usually recount it—he was suspended because the flagrant foul gave him four flagrant foul points for the playoffs.
For Wembanyama, the math is closing in. After he picked up a flagrant 2 for a nasty elbow to the head of Naz Reid of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round. the elbow to Towns’ jaw puts him at three flagrant foul points. If he picks up one more flagrant foul in Game 5 or 6. he’ll be suspended for the following game. with suspensions taking effect after the game.
The Knicks see the schedule differently. They argue Wembanyama should have already been suspended for his shove on Brunson in Game 3.
Now the series is on a knife’s edge: New York leads 3-1 after a comeback that belongs in Finals history. and San Antonio heads into Game 5 with only one mission—win. or go home. The question that follows both teams to the AT&T Center is simple and brutal: what side of Game 4 shows up next—shot-making and control. or the sudden. irreversible collapse?.
NBA Finals Knicks vs Spurs OG Anunoby Jalen Brunson Victor Wembanyama De'Aaron Fox Game 4 result Game 5 preview Madison Square Garden flagrant foul points